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{
    "id": 380953,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/380953/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 269,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murkomen",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 440,
        "legal_name": "Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen",
        "slug": "kipchumba-murkomen"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker. Let me put it this way: I have confidence that next year when we will be looking at the Division of Revenue Bill, we shall have the opportunity to give proper allocation to the counties after looking at the costing of functions. These are the things that we want to look at. Madam Temporary Speaker, Section 10 of the Bill provides that each county Treasury shall reflect all transfers by the national Government in its books of account; the Finance Bill of each county shall reflect the total allocation from the national Government separately and so on. I want to say that whereas these wonderful provisions are provided for in this Bill, we have a serious problem on the ground. Although Schedule Six, paragraph 15 gives the national Government the power to build the capacity of counties, very few counties have qualified financial budgeting officers that can assist them to do a proper budget. Very few county assembly members have ever, in their lifetime, done any budget. In fact, in the few counties that have former members of National Assembly, those members are merely speakers. For example, the Speaker of Tana River County Assembly and the Speaker of Makueni County Assembly, if I am not wrong and I stand to be corrected. Madam Temporary Speaker, we need to ensure that the counties have the capacity to do these things. It is not tomorrow, but today because the budgeting process will start again by October. In their duty to build the capacity of counties, Treasury should even go ahead and come up with a document on how to do budgeting in the Kiswahili language. I have a reason for saying so. The other day, it was reported that some county assemblies are completely unable to debate anything in the English language. It was reported in the newspaper that there was a particular county where the county assembly members, I do not want to mention it because it is not good for purposes of protecting the image, were asking their speaker whether they should not disregard the standing orders because it is disturbing them. They just wanted to talk freely. That is the level of incapacity that we have at the county level. We are just talking about normal debating. I must confess that until I came to this House, I did not know how to draft a Motion. I had to go to the Clerk’s office to be assisted. So, how worse is it at the local level when you talk about them doing budgets, Motions and Bills, among others? It is important that the national Government or the Treasury comes up with a document in Kiswahili that translates the The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}